


i'll get you through the morning

by strangehighs



Series: the weight of all these years [2]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: A Funny Scene That Turned Too Deep, Building trust, Communication Issues, Enemies to Friends, Gen, Language Barrier, M/M, Mentions of Violence, Pre-Canon, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-27
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:55:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26674018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strangehighs/pseuds/strangehighs
Summary: Building trust through so many barriers is difficult work, and the first days are the hardest of them all.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: the weight of all these years [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1940923
Comments: 4
Kudos: 182





	i'll get you through the morning

Barely a few days after he learned the man’s name, Yusuf decided he’d already had enough. He reached his breaking point and if he didn’t say anything he would literally _burst_ open like a bitten grape, spilling everywhere. The only problem—he had many others but either he focused on one thing at a time or he would go mad—was he didn’t have enough words to voice his irritation.

Regret was the feeling he felt the most when the urge to ask things came. It was his own fault, really, for choosing Greek and pride over disclosing his knowledge of Sabir and allowing the Frank any sort of advantage. His Greek was passable, good even, if he were to believe what people he made business with used to say (or maybe they were just being polite, and he’d been making a fool of himself all along) but things like immortality, how to survive in the company of someone who killed you more than a dozen times, and personal hygiene didn’t regularly come up in conversation while one was trying to secure a contract, and thus he was left with no words.

He wanted to ask the man what he knew, _if_ he knew more than Yusuf. Did he know what they were, or why they couldn’t die? Where was he from, why did you follow me? How would they even find the women they dreamt of, if they were truly real? He wanted to say _stop staring at me like I’m a curious caged animal_ , and more importantly, he wanted to say _you have lice and you stink like a pigpen, you disgusting Frank._ He meant to complain about the way Nicolò stared at him while he prayed, he was sure of it as he spent all morning gathering the right words to tell him to kindly fuck off.

“You have bugs,” is what he ended up saying, after watching Nicolò scratch his head yet again. No sooner had the words left his mouth, Yusuf felt his face flush, and he fought the overwhelming urge to cringe, to hide his face in the dirt just so his stupid mouth wouldn’t embarrass him even more. The man, thrice-damned that he was, only looked at him in confusion, light eyes shining in his dirty face.

“Bugs,” he repeated, once it was clear Nicolò wouldn’t let it go, and pointed at the scraggly hair that fell limp and mated around the man’s face. “Lice,” he said in Arabic. Under his breath, he added, “And I don’t know how we don’t have vultures flying over our heads at this point.”

“If you say again I reek,” Nicolò said, ignoring the rant he couldn’t understand, “Know you reek too.”

“Less than you,” he answered, “and I don’t have bugs.”

Nicolò rolled his eyes, muttering under his breath but refusing to take the bait; he never did and Yusuf hated him for it. Instead, he said a word in his language, and watched Yusuf expectantly, only to sigh when he just narrowed his eyes at him. He could throw _his_ bait back at him too.

“Say again, please?” asked Nicolò, after a beat.

He considered ignoring the man, but when had that worked for him so far? “Qaml,” he said, turning away from the man now engrossed in repeating it under his breath.

“Is right?” asked Nicolò.

Yusuf sighed. “Enough.”

(He had tried teaching him words in his language since the first days, persistent even under Yusuf’s best glares. He supposed such a result was to be expected since he had nothing to threaten the Frank with—not after being so intimately acquainted with his entrails just a few days prior and still having the joys of his stinky company.

“Liopàrdo,” the man murmured, pointing at the big cat they were watching half-hidden behind a rock outcrop, trying to avoid its attention.

Yusuf pretended to ignore him again, feigning concentration in calming down his horse, but at the same time, he couldn’t help cataloging the word in his head, rolling the syllables in his mind. He’d always enjoyed learning, and these bits of knowledge the man kept dangling in front of him were damn tempting. Frowning at himself, he bit his lips.

Nicolò sighed. “Tell me,” he said, resigned.

_Devious_ , Yusuf thought. When his first tactic failed, Nicolò resorted then to try and get Yusuf to teach him Arabic instead. He’d been slowly weedling more words out of him every day when giving his own invariably failed. By the time they reached Baghdad, he would have a quite neat vocabulary, if things continued this way.

“Fahd,” Yusuf muttered in defeat, and Nicolò gave him one of his small smiles.)

He almost broke his resolve of not using Sabir more than once, as the questions mounted behind his teeth, but each passing day it seems too late to go back, his ruse now wound too tight around them. Whenever the man spoke his own language, muttering to himself, or just trying to teach him yet another word, Yusuf would strain his ears for any recognizable accent, any clue that would help place him without having to ask it outright. His knowledge fell short on that endeavour: by now he was sure he wasn’t Sardinian, Corsican, or even Sicilian, but he still could be from any other city from Calabria to Provence. With his luck the man might as well be from Pisa or Genoa, and wouldn’t that be a treat?

Some nights, under starlight and the soft glow of half-dead embers, Yusuf could almost forget the man was his enemy. The soft shape of him, curled on his side in slumber, could be anyone his mind wanted: another soldier tired after a day’s march, a cousin he was accompanying to meet his bride, a friend…

The stark reality brought by sunlight was something entirely different.

They avoided roads mainly because Yusuf supposed—rightly, might he add—that their bedraggled appearance wouldn’t give other travelers much comfort. He failed to factor Nicolò's mere presence into his calculations.

The first small town, barely more than a village, they agreed to stop by showed signs of swelling, of trying to fit in more people than it was capable of. As they walked through the streets, he slowly took notice of wary eyes following them, haunted faces. Refugees. A few steps behind him, he saw Nicolò stiffening out of the corner of his eye, the clench of his jaw tightening in time with his fist. Allah was merciful enough to stop him from reaching for the sword still strapped around his waist; Yusuf didn’t know what would have happened if he had done it. As things were, he counted them lucky for getting out empty-handed but unbothered, except for a streak in the dirt caking Nicolò’s face from where an old woman spat at him.

After that, he couldn’t pretend to himself, even in the dead of night.

(Their fiasco left them with perilously short supplies of food, and so Yusuf had to get creative, though he had never been much good with a bow. After missing three shots—and shattering one of their four arrows salvaged from the wreckage of al-Quds along with the bow—he relented at last to Nicolò’s frantic gesturing. With sure aim, he took down two hares, which they roasted over their campfire. Yusuf took the pelts, hoping to get at least a little money on them once they reached a bigger town.

As he watched Nicolò eating with enthusiasm, he wanted to ask if the man had been one of the barbarians eating the dead at al-Ma’arra, but once again his Greek failed him.

Maybe it had just been his courage this time.)

Each passing day Yusuf missed his family more. It had been more than a year since he last saw any of them, just a few weeks after he arrived at al-Qahirah to study. His brother came bearing his father’s appeal to have him join the army, but also counsel of his own. Nabih knew as much as he did that their father would never hold it against him if he declined, if he completed his studies and came back. He knew Yusuf had always hoped to find a love like his, something that would hit him suddenly, and then everything else would make sense. A well-tended garden, carefully nurtured into bloom, was no less beautiful than a forest seeded by Allah, he said, and sometimes Yusuf wished he had listened to him more carefully.

The pull to come back fought against the need to find answers he felt only the women they dreamt of could give. What made him press on was the fact that he had no idea how to explain to his family what had happened to him. Another part of his mind supplied that he had no desire to see his light-eyed shadow anywhere near his family.

(The next town was a test for both of them, in very different ways. Nicolò agreed to stay behind, given they noticed even more movement from the same direction they came from than in the previous town. Yusuf left him in a secluded spot, with nothing else other than instructions to wait for his return; the clench of his jaw signed he knew how probable it was that he would be left alone for good; even then, he passed Yusuf his sword, the only thing of value he had, and told him to trade it into something useful.

Yusuf came back with food, a knife to replace the sword, a squat donkey to replace their horse, and a few coins to spare. The surprise in Nicolò’s eyes echoed Yusuf’s at himself. He’d been sure for a moment he wouldn’t come back.)

Following the wadi made finding water and food easier, and they came into sight of a vast lake. Cleaning out the worst of the grime, Yusuf managed to charm a farmer enough he overlooked the possibility that his traveling companion might have been a Frankish soldier: they were strong men, deft hands at work, and in exchange for a roof over their heads, and food in their bellies, they would help repair the irrigation canal before the rain made the lake fill up again. The best thing though, in Yusuf’s opinion, was the nice wooden tub he said they could use as long as they carried the water.

He felt like an entirely new person once he was bathed and clean, dressed in clothes not riddled with holes, or caked with blood and dirt; he insisted on paying for them, though it was a hard thing to make their hosts accept it. He trimmed his beard and hair with borrowed scissors, shorter than he normally would, to take out most of the mats, his head feeling light and strange once it was done. Nicolò took the scissors after filling the tub with fresh water, cutting his hair as short as he could; it looked uneven and spiky after he finished.

Yusuf didn’t notice Nicolò approaching him until he was within touching distance. In his hand, he held the knife Yusuf had gotten him, which he’d spent the morning sharpening to a gleam; he might have tensed, for the man, noticing how his approach must have looked, raised his other hand in peace. Only then Yusuf noticed he was clad in what was left of his undergarments, nothing more. He raised his eyebrows, confused, and Nicolò offered him the knife.

“Best to shave it all,” he said with a shrug, “To get rid of the… bugs.”

“And you want me to do it?” answered Yusuf, accepting the blad. Nicolò shrugged again, and sat down on an upturned bucket, facing away. He tilted the man’s head back, placing the tip of the blade against the pulsing vein. It quickened in time with Nicolò’s breath. “I could kill you,” he added, bright green eyes seeking out his, “Cut your neck.”

“You already did once,” Nicolò answered softly, “I came back.”

The trust placed in him was startling, even when he remembered there would be no real consequences should he break it other than a mess to clean up. More startling still was the fact that Yusuf didn’t feel particularly inclined to shed the man’s blood. He told himself this was simply because it would solve nothing, as he ran the blade through the pale skin of Nicolò’s head. He’d already shared his food with him, his water, his fire, and his mount, even though he had all reasons to see him as nothing but a monster. _Soft-hearted_ , came his mother’s laugh, _the kindest boy I’ve ever seen_. Maybe too kind…

(“You’re not made for war, Yusuf,” Nabih said all those months ago. “You’re made for gentleness, for beautiful things. For love. I fear for you if you go, for the things you’ll have to see. I fear not getting you back.”)

His throat was tight by the time he finished, words tangling against each other like a nest of snakes. Yusuf offered the knife back over Nicolò’s shoulder and stepped back.

“Strange,” said Nicolò, running his hand through the bare scalp. “Long since I cut it.”

Yusuf cleared his throat. “Ugly.” Nicolò smiled at the taunt. His eyes looked even bigger now without all the hair covering his face. He walked away to bathe, leaving Yusuf with his confusing thoughts.

(He didn’t look like a monster when clean.)

The days lengthened with work and hardly a minute to rest during daylight, and yet Yusuf felt restless. They were fed plentifully, the effect showing more in Nicolò who gradually lost the haunted look. With a night’s rest, they were refreshed like none of the other workers were, Yusuf noticed, and that’s how they learned that their bodies mended constantly, even if not literally wounded. The limits of their abilities had not been met yet, and it scared him.

When he voiced his want to move forward to Baghdad, Nicolò just shrugged. Three days later they set off again, on foot only this time, their donkey traded by new travel clothes and supplies with another farmer. Another six and they were within sight of the city, and yet the restlessness didn’t abate. Yusuf insisted they camp one last time before making it to the city; the other man didn’t question. The way he narrowed his eyes at him, before turning to look calculatingly at the city in the distance, showed he knew very well they could have pushed through and reached it in a couple of hours though.

“You can go home from here,” said Yusuf that night, _wherever that is_ going unmentioned. Nicolò looked puzzled. “We work, get more money. You find merchants and travel with them.”

“And you?” asked Nicolò, an anxious note in his voice.

Yusuf considered the man in front of him. Clad in familiar clothes, and clean except for the dust off the road, Nicolò looked almost approaching. Nothing about him gave away the things he'd done, the things he'd been part of. Yusuf averted his eyes. “I go home too.”

The man frowned at him, silent. He pressed his lips, looking down at his hands balled in fists; Nicolò shook his head as if batting away a fly and then nodded to himself. He raised his head, watching him over the fire. "I go with you.”

The look of resolution caught Yusuf by surprise. “And your family, your people? Don’t you miss them?” The words came out into the Tamazight of his home, and he wanted to tear at his hair. Nicolò frowned in sincere confusion. “Why?” he asked, forcing himself back into Greek.

“We’re the same, we stay together.”

“Your family, don’t you miss them?” asked Yusuf, exasperation mounting at the stubbornness.

Nicolò grimaced, chewing his lip. “Complicated,” he said. “I saw them little for many years.”

Yusuf threw himself to the ground. The longing for home that had been eating away at him for weeks reached a crest, suffocating and all-consuming. He longed to see father, his darling sisters; to meet the baby Rida had been carrying in her belly, that she told him about the day before he left and not even her husband knew about yet. It hurts like nothing else he felt before, more than any of the deaths Nicolò had inflicted on him. At the same time, the dreams that consumed his nights tugged at him incessantly, a connection he couldn’t name or explain. He _felt_ what they felt. Wasn’t that a sign of the path he should take?

He didn’t look up when he heard the sound of gravel crushed under shoes, the rustle of clothes as Nicolò sat by his side. They had never sat even on the same side of the fire while camping, much less within reach. He considered standing up and leaving for a moment, but he realized he had nowhere to go.

“I dream of two women together, the way I dreamt of you the first days,” the man said, soft and measured. “You do too, yes?”

“Yes,” he answered. There was no point in hiding this.

“They’re like us.”

“I think.”

“We can find them,” said Nicolò, a question passed as a suggestion. He waited, seemingly for an answer but Yusuf had none. “Or we go to your family if you want,” he continued when the silence stretched on. “You choose.”

“Why me?” he almost screams. He wants to.

“Doesn’t matter to me. I follow you.”

Nicolò held his stare, unflinchingly steady. His sword had been just as steady the first time he killed him.

“I don’t trust you, Frank,” he spat. Nicolò just narrowed his eyes. “I trust you even less with my family. I have no reason not to leave you—”

“You won’t.”

“What?”

“Leave,” said Nicolò. Yusuf stared at him in disbelief, the words shocked out of him, and he continued, “You didn’t leave in the desert, when I didn’t rise. You didn’t leave in that town; you gave me food, and water, and clothes. You could leave, but you didn’t, and you won’t.”

“Why are you sure?” asked Yusuf. This was the most the man had said in all these weeks, and he was right. _Soft-hearted_ , he thought. Foolish, more likely. Nicolò just shrugged, his words spent. “You’re mad.”

“Maybe.”

The fire crackled in front of them, undisturbed by their discussion. Nicolò had yet to rise from his spot beside him. It felt like a crossroads.

“We search for them, the women,” Yusuf decided. His heart weighed heavy in his chest, but as soon as he spoke the words he felt calm, right. He didn’t know why Allah tied him to this strange man, and possibly to these women, through this gift, only that it happened. They were bound by destiny it seemed, he knew it to be true the moment it crossed his mind.

By Allah, he was tied to this savage frank.

He didn’t look much like a savage by the fire’s warm light, the corner of his lip upturned in one of his almost-smiles.

_I put my trust in Allah_ , thought Yusuf tiredly, laying back on the packed ground.

* * *

As Nicolò watched Yusuf sleep, his mind whirled through the mess that were his thoughts these days. Most of the time he felt unmoored, a ship lost in the storm, to the point of nausea; other times he thought he’d never seen with such clarity in his life.

He didn’t know which part of him decided to follow Yusuf into the wild, walking away from everything he knew, but he was glad for it. If he had stopped to think, to rationalize his situation, he might not have acted at all, and his chance would have been lost. He noticed quite soon he didn’t dream of Yusuf anymore after those first days between his first death at his hands and the second one, after he really _saw_ him; only the two women remained, with enough glimpses of their surroundings smudged around their faces he could only suppose he was _meant_ to find them. That he’d stumbled into Yusuf— _Gutted him_ , his mind corrected—couldn’t be mere chance either.

Yusuf felt like a promise of land for the lost ship of his life. Whether he would dock safely or crash against its shores he didn’t know yet; the fear of being alone with this curse was bigger than anything else. That he didn’t have Yusuf’s trust was of little consequence, and anything but unexpected.

(He expected nothing else than to be left behind when he’d been told to wait outside the town. To sit there waiting while the sun went higher in the sky, and then lowered, giving way to the stars, while he waited and waited. He expected hunger again—gnawing at his insides, piercing, and _so familiar_ —even though Yusuf hadn’t left him to go without yet ever since he took him in.

He still had no idea why he’d taken him in.

He bit his lip, offering his sword, and sat down to wait as instructed.

Yusuf came back—against all odds and expectations—with a merry little donkey, fresh food, and a gift. The blade of his new knife was sharp, gleaming in the afternoon sun.)

(That same blade pressed against his neck days later, and then he saw right through Yusuf’s provocation. He was starting to know better, slowly. The jolt of fear that ran through him came and went in a flash, and the trust he felt for the other man was unsettling—unholy even, according to his mind.

Yusuf handled him with a care he hadn’t felt in a long time.)

The dreams of the women were mixed with nightmares of blood and guts, of carnage and destruction that woke him up drenched in sweat. He still had no idea how Yusuf stood seeing him, how he found it in himself to share his food, and his camp with an enemy; Nicolò didn’t know if he would have been able to do the same, had their situations been the opposite. No, he’s being too fair on himself; he _knows_ he wouldn’t have done the same. The piety he’d been taught as a good Christian certainly didn’t extend to those without faith, and he’d learned that lesson very well.

Only Yusuf _wasn’t_ without faith, was he? If anything, he was much more faithful to his own god that Nicolò had been able to after dying and coming back. He watched while his companion prayed, torn between curiosity at the differences and similarities, and envy that what seemed to come so easy to him evaded Nicolò now. Every word of the prayers he’d recited for years left a sour taste in his mouth.

Amidst the confusion in his mind, only Yusuf stayed the same, always contradicting whatever expectations Nicolò created about him. He couldn’t settle the debt his mother placed on him when she begged God for his life by giving it back, his sacrifice for what he was told to be His service refused, and he couldn’t imagine his family missing him as much as Yusuf missed his own. It was so long since he had seen any of them… He had no reason to go back. Nicolò also couldn’t fathom facing this new life alone; he didn’t know if he would be able to keep his sanity if he was by himself.

He looked at the man sleeping beside him again, and his intentions settled. Tomorrow he would follow Yusuf whichever way he chose to go; he would follow this strange man, who had shown him kindness when he had no reason to, who fed an enemy though hunger didn't hold him dead. He would stay with him, and he would wait to see what the future had in store for them.

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be a simple fun scene about Joe mocking Nicky a bit, and then the shaving. They got sad.


End file.
